The Hollister School District, faced with a $800,000 shortfall
this year and $360,000 the next, is looking for ways to balance its
ledgers. The latest budget news comes after $2 million already was
trimmed from this year’s budget, leading to larger class sizes and
angering teachers and parents.
The Hollister School District, faced with a $800,000 shortfall this year and $360,000 the next, is looking for ways to balance its ledgers. The latest budget news comes after $2 million already was trimmed from this year’s budget, leading to larger class sizes and angering teachers and parents.
This time around, there likely will be more unsavory solutions explored – further class size increases, trimming teacher and administrator salaries and cutting jobs – to close the funding gap. And, no doubt, some of those measures will have to go into place.
But the Hollister school board should explore with equal diligence ways to set the district on the right track for the long term.
One possibility – an option raised by the district’s finance director – is to study the benefits and drawbacks of consolidating the Hollister School District with the San Benito High School District. That option deserves more than just a cursory mention. It deserves a full-blown study.
It’s hard to imagine that there wouldn’t be cost savings by consolidating the job of administering San Benito County’s two largest school districts. The most obvious savings are in superintendent salaries. There would only need to be one superintendent instead of two. And there certainly could be other areas of overlap that may provide savings.
In fact, it would be worth looking at the pros and cons of unifying all or most of the 11 school districts in the county for the same reasons.
Consolidation would be a huge – and perhaps unwelcome – change for San Benito High School administrators. The high school has been in its own district since it formed more than a century ago. But, as County Superintendent Tim Foley points out, it would not be a snap decision. Consolidation would have to pass a rigorous vetting process that would likely take years. It would be thoroughly debated in public, would go to a vote of the people and then have to be approved by the State Board of Education.
We should ask ourselves, does it make sense for Hollister’s largest school district to continue to be separate from the high school in the same town? Would the students be better served if one governmental organization oversaw their education from kindergarten through twelfth grade? Would consolidating the districts make fiscal sense in the long term?
We don’t have all the answers. But in light of the Hollister School District’s ongoing financial problems, it’s worth perusing.
